9/27/2017 Botanical Garden in Nerja / ISMO Arquitectura | ArchDaily

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Botanical Garden in Nerja / ISMO Arquitectura

05:00 - 2 January, 2016
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Architects
ISMO Arquitectura
Location
Andalusia, Spain
Project Team
Isabel Amores + Modesto Garca (Arquitectos), Silvia Renaud ( ingeniera de montes )
Project Year
2015
Photographs
Fernando Alda

More Specs

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[ land ]

Placed in the Sierras de Tejeda, Almijara y Alhama Nature Reserve, close to Nerja Cave, and open out to the shiny surge of the sea, this work
supports the connection between the hillside and the paths. The infrastructure program spreads over this landscape, like pieces of furniture.
The footsteps will be guided along unpaved paths, sometimes at field level, sometimes higher to cross over a little valley or just to be
accessible. These paths will also generate covered places, which will become useable because of their connection to pieces of constructions.
These pieces are exactly the necessary size and create a group, over the same enviorement that must be shown with this work.

[ way ]

The access takes place across a viewingpoint that brings us to the Garden, placed in a lower plane. We go down to this garden along an
evolving path which become into a roof where we the Reception and Herbal buildings are placed. The Reception building also contains the
information desk, the administration oice and the shop. A er this first filter we can continue to go down across the Nature, a sort of openair
classroom till our next stop, where the rockery and the pond are. If we then go up, well find the classroomworkshop and the laboratory, both
close to the plants nursery and the orchard.

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[ functional places ]

Some modules, organized as places of dierent uses stand over the Garden, connected with the walker and sometimes creating a sort of
observing points where one can look without being seen. The same uniform appearance will be able to contain places, like classrooms or
storage rooms. We can sometimes walk over them because they are really unpaved paths. Or sometimes they can be used as vegetation display
structures, like the case of the ecological tank roof that create a continuation of the hillside. We keep this way the rain water till we use it,
supporting the biological cycle of this portion of Nature.

[ texture ]

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The colour of the hills become part of the construction by paths and walls. The structure of exposed concrete, evolving roofs, floors and walls
reinforces the idea of a cave. Dierent types of wood (grains over the concrete or the natural wood lattice) create a connection between
functional elements and urban pieces of furniture. The rusty iron gives the appearance of lightweight in protection elements and supports. The
time will be present as a texture that will unify the natural and the manufactured things.

[ idea of place ]

The architecture is spread over the terrain to supply the needs of the display. We find, with their dierent sizes, toilets, a classroom, an
information point, bins, benches, etc. They sew the dierent parts of the land, like big steel brackets. In this way, the architecture becomes a
structure for climbing plants. The air and the perspective go through these elements.

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The paths, according to the level lines of the land to be used by handicapped people, will display dierent layer with dierent kinds of plants,
so that the Garden will be green covered. These unpaved paths will be also in lower or higher levels, according to the needs of the program. The
elevation is useful for a stage area, a shady place for people to join and observe. The buildings rise over the landscape, being folded to create
covered viewpoints

[ botanical place ]

The Botanical Garden is based on the principle of making the place natural. So it stands according to simple schemes of distribution and
vegetation cultivation. Although its just a part of Nature, it also becomes a representation of the native plant species of the province. The
garden must dialogue with the environment and develop the continuity with the landscape. A guide, a gardener and a biologist will be the sta.

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The path that goes down to the garden avoids the back part of the restaurant, facing directly the sea, along the hillside. The naturalization of
the place will be a slow process, linked to the evolution of the plants we must preserve. Unpaved paths and wire mesh for climbing plants
create a sort of plant tissue that becomes another topographic level. It will be changing along with the seasons.

Pines will be systematically felled when necessary during the first phase. A erwards, they will be replaced with native trees in order to create a
botanical continuity among the dierent levels.

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The reinforced simply twist wire mesh with steel struts give the Garden an appearance related to the Nature Reserve where it is placed and
which it must preserve. The brackets that connect the dierent interventions will be replaced by wooden posts, to make a transition The
masonry, so present in the area and close to the Nerja Cave, is used for little retaining walls and parterres for trees.

At the secondary entrance of the garden there are some plots as an educational orchard, so that the classroom could be used separately for
meetings, conferences and other events. The stage area is very near, in the shady place of the footbridge.

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Another resting point is close to the pond, in the natural valley. A place to stop and enjoy the leafy vegetation and the sounds of frogs and other
amphibians, as its normal close to ponds.

A more natural path, just sculpted and cleaned, adapted to the hill, drives us to the higher viewpoint, to enjoy the views of the Nerja and Maro
coastline. This mirador is inclined to prevent from seeing the motorway and make the eyes look directly the horizon.

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Fernando Alda Fernando Alda Fernando Alda Fernando Alda Fernando Alda

Fernando Alda Fernando Alda Fernando Alda Fernando Alda Fernando Alda

Fernando Alda Fernando Alda Fernando Alda Fernando Alda Floor Plan

Floor Plan Floor Plan Plans Elevation Elevation

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Elevation Elevation Elevation Section Section

Section Section Section Detail Detail

Detail Furniture Sketch Sketch Sketch

Sketch Sketch Sketch Sketch

Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.

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Cite: "Botanical Garden in Nerja / ISMO Arquitectura" 02 Jan 2016. ArchDaily. Accessed 27 Sep 2017. <http://www.archdaily.com/779629/botanical-garden-in-nerja-ismo-
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